It’s always about the clothes. And yet, it’s never just about the clothes.

This week it’s about the spacesuit, specifically. Or the lack of one that is assembled, safety-tested and, equally important, the correct size for an astronaut who identifies as female and requires a medium fit.

On Monday, NASA announced it was scratching plans for the first-ever all-women spacewalk due to a lack of readily available spacegear. Both women, NASA explained, wear the same size and there is currently only one at the ready in space. One woman will be replaced with a man who can wear a larger suit for Friday’s walk.

Backlash following the announcement traveled at the speed of light around the social media sphere. The Twitter-verse questioned: How could NASA fail to have two spacesuits that fit women?

NASA astronaut Christina Koch assists fellow astronauts Nick Hague and Anne McClain in their spacesuits shortly before they begin the first spacewalk of their careers, aboard the International Space Station (ISS), March, 22, 2019 NASA cancelled the first all-female spacewalk which was scheduled for March 29, 2019, citing spacesuit issues. (Photo: NASA, EPA-EFE)

NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz later explained, saying Anne McClain trained in a large and medium spacesuit on the ground, but she’s a medium in real-life zero-g. One of the two medium-size suits in the station is an unassembled spare and it’d take too long to assemble and test.

The specifics of this situation are understandable. As are the realities of budget cuts that have hit NASA. And yet, from the 30,000-foot, galactic view, it’s not about the specifics or this one setback for women’s historical achievements.

“People aren’t thinking of women when they’re designing,” says Joy Davis, fashion scholar and co-host of the Unravel podcast. “NASA is notoriously known for being practical, thinking 10 steps ahead, ... so they didn’t think that would be necessary because it would have been done otherwise.”

Few women may be able to relate to spacesuit-fit issues. But many intimately understand how it feels to move through a world that is not built for them. Think icy offices with temperatures programmed by men in suits; seat belts that are challenging to comfortably position around boobs; impossible-to-reach top cabinets set to the average height of men.

Clothing — including safety gear such as spacesuits or helmets — is often a pain point. Even in 2019, women face everything from banal frustrations like a dearth of functional pockets to potentially life-threatening scenarios of ill-fitting bulletproof vests.

Dress norms became more problematic as more women began working outside the home. The volume of women’s skirts presented safety concerns on factory floors, says Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, a historian at Case Western Reserve University. Dresses eventually slimmed down, but opposition to women in pants remained fierce.

Women were not even allowed to wear pants on the floor of Congress until the 1990s.

In modern jobs, male-focused designs can present major safety concerns, including workwear in the military, police departments and fire departments, where uniforms and safety gear haven’t been universally adapted for women.

"Our uniforms have traditionally not been sized for women, and that's beyond just the uniform itself. It's also the gear that we have. We have women performing in every combat mission, and we owe it to them to have gear that fits," Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said at a defense writers' group last year. "You've got to be able to move inside that cockpit, be able to turn, to look around … and right now, women are pretty much wearing men's vests. And so we can do better than that."

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On March 29, 2019, astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch will exit the International Space Station and work outside the spacecraft in the first all female spacewalk.
In this photo, Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, of Italy, checks her pressure suit in preparation for her crews departure from the International Space Station after 6 1/2 months in space. Since June, 6, 2015, Cristoforetti holds the record for the longest single spaceflight for a woman, a record previously held by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams with 195 days after Expedition 33. Cristoforetti also holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight of an ESA astronaut, NASA said in its press release. ESA/NASA/HANDOUT, EPA

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-131 Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson prepares to practice driving an M-113 armored personnel carrier. Wilson is the second African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison. Her 42 days in space are the most of any African American astronaut, male or female. Kim Shiflett, NASA

Wendy Lawrence, 58, a retired US Navy captain and former NASA astronaut, is pictured on the Space Shuttle trainer that was used for astronaut's training at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, February 28, 2018. JASON REDMOND, AFP/Getty Images

Astronaut Kalpana Chawla was the flight engineer and mission specialist for Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-107. She and six other crew members died after Columbia broke up upon re-entry to earth Feb. 1, 2003. Getty Images, Getty Images

America's first woman astronaut Sally Ride, communicates with ground controllers from the flight deck during the six-day space mission of the Challenger. Ride, the first US woman to fly in space, died on July 23, 2012 after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, her foundation announced. She was 61. Ride first launched into space in 1983, on the seventh US space shuttle mission. AFP/Getty Images

Mae Jemison conducts an experiment aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on Sept. 20, 1992. The first black woman astronaut in space, she graduated from high school at 16 and holds a number of degrees. Jemison is now an adjunct professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
"It was such a significant moment because since I was a little girl I had always assumed I would go into space," Jemison said in the New York Times. "Looking out the window of that space shuttle, I thought if that little girl growing up in Chicago could see her older self now, she would have a huge grin on her face." NONE, GNS

China's first female astronaut Liu Yang salutes during a sending off ceremony as she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China sent its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. Ng Han Guan, AP

Astronaut Sunita L. Williams, Expedition 15 flight engineer, wearing squat harness pads, poses for a photo while using the Interim Resistive Exercise Device (IRED) equipment in the Unity node of the International Space Station. In addition to formerly being the only woman to complete seven spacewalks as of 2017, Williams was the first person to run a marathon in Space in 2007. NONE, NASA

Wendy Lawrence, 58, a retired US Navy captain and former NASA astronaut, is pictured on the Space Shuttle trainer that was used for astronaut's training at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington on February 28, 2018. She was the first female graduate of the United States Naval Academy to fly into space. Her first mission was on the STS-114 in 1995, and then again in 1997, 1998, and 2005. Jason Redmond, AFP/Getty Images

Officials of the Russian search and rescue service help French astronaut Claudie Haignere upon her landing in Kazakhstan, Oct. 31, 2001, after a mission on the International Space Station. Haignere, the first European woman on the international space station, and her two Russian teammates returned safely to earth in Kazakhstan. ANATOLY MALTSEV, AFP

Eileen Collins stands next to a portrait of herself as she has her picture taken Saturday July 18, 2009 at the National Aviation Hall of Fame photo reception. The event was held for aviation figures who are to be enshrined in the organization's hall of fame. Collins, born in Elmira, N.Y., was the Air Force's first female flight instructor and was chosen to be an astronaut in 1991. In 1995, she became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle, and she became the first to command an American space mission when she served on a shuttle in 1999. She flew four shuttle missions, logging 872 hours before retiring in 2006. Ron Alvey, AP

Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper made history as the first Minnesota woman to go into space. On Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006, the 43-year-old St. Paul native will blast off with five other crew members aboard the shuttle Atlantis to resume construction of the International Space Station. AP

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, poses with Naoko Yamazaki, left in blue, the second Japanese woman to go into space, and Chiaki Mukai, right in blue, the first Japanese female astronaut, and athletes of the Special Olympics World Winter Games during a reception after her arrival at Haneda international airport in Tokyo, Japan, Monday, Feb. 16, 2009. AP

Police uniforms have come a long way since many joined forces in the 1970s. Mary Ellen Abrecht, one of Washington, D.C.’s first female patrol officers, told WAMU it was hard to find uniforms.

“It was ridiculous,” Abrecht said. “We were given a gun and expected to carry it in our pocketbook.”

Sergeant Tanya Sirl of Cleveland told Racked that in 2007, she was still wearing uniforms designed for men. When she tried to follow a suspect by hopping a chain link fence, she ripped her pants.

“My pants got caught on the fence because the crotch was so low,” Sirl said. “Everyone got to see my hot pink thong.”

In 2017, a federal court ruled in favor of former Tuscaloosa Police Officer Stephanie Hicks, saying breastfeeding mothers were protected by anti-discrimination laws. Hicks said she faced hostility when she returned from maternity leave. And when she expressed concerns about tight-fitting bulletproof vests being painful and interfering with milk production, a supervisor told her to go without or wear a looser-fitting one, both of which would put her at significant risk.

“It’s been dismal, the history of anything that has to be specialized and has to be correct for a woman’s anatomy," said Beth Dincuff Charleston, a fashion historian at Parsons School of Design.

Examples also abound in the world of sports.

“Women were wearing boned corsets to play things like tennis,” Davis said. “We think it’s unimaginable to wear corsets though we still wear shapewear today. But to wear it for sportswear, it’s very rigid and can cause easy fatigue, and women were playing at a very elite level in corsets.”

Serena Williams and her catsuit at the 2018 French Open.(Photo: EPA-EFE)

Last year, the French Tennis Federation announced that Serena Williams' catsuit would be banned going forward from the French Open. The black Nike suit was part medical: Williams has a history of blood clots, including after the birth of her daughter, which can be warded off with compression wear.

“It was again, this conversation of ‘Why isn’t she wearing white? Why isn’t she wearing a skirt?’” Rabinovitch-Fox said. “It started this conversation among the tennis associations, ‘Why are we still forcing women to wear skirts to tennis? What’s the deal with that?”

The hope is similar conversations around NASA’s space suits may bring change, historians say, and further advancement opportunities for women.

“Clothing allowed men to travel further back then and allows men to travel further now,” Charleston said. “If you have the right equipment and it fits the right way you can definitely go further.”